Saturday, October 4, 2014

A domestic dispute Tuesday afternoon left the mayor of Bell Gardens, a town just outside of East Los Angeles, dead after his wife allegedly shot him during a fight.

According to local media, Daniel Crespo and his wife Levette were arguing in the bedroom of their southern California home when their son, 19-year-old Daniel Crespo Jr., tried to intervene.

Initial reports indicate that when the son entered the bedroom, the altercation turned physical between Daniel Sr. and Daniel Jr. It was at that point, Levette, fearing for the safety of her son, grabbed a gun and fired several shots, striking her husband in the torso.

Michael Dunn, the man who opened fire on four teens at a gas station following a dispute over loud music, was found guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday in a Jacksonville, Florida, courthouse for the shooting death of 17-year-old Jordan Davis.

Sentencing has tentatively been set for Oct. 17 and Dunn could face a term of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“We believe that we have to have as much justice as we can to assure that Michael Dunn will never ever walk out of a prison,” prosecutor Angela Corey told local media.

Dunn was found guilty in February for three counts of attempted second-degree murder, but there was a hung jury on the first-degree murder charge for Davis’ death. The jury deliberated for more than 30 hours before the mistrial was declared, but yesterday’s guilty verdict came after just five and a half hours.

“We are very grateful that justice has been served, justice not only for Jordan, but justice for Trayvon (Martin) and justice for all the nameless, faceless children and people that will never have a voice. And Ron and I are committed to giving our lives to walking out Jordan’s justice and Jordan’s legacy,” Davis’ mother, Lucy McBath, said after the verdict was read.

Examining data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports for all 50 states from 1981 to 2010, the researchers confirmed a 2013 study, which found total homicide rates were higher in states with the highest percentage of gun owners. But the latest finding published in the October issue of the American Journal of Public Health also found no difference among states in the incidence of murders committed by those who didn’t know their victims.

What did increase with gun ownership? The incidence in murders committed by loved ones, friends, and acquaintances, such as rival gang members.

“Not only do guns not protect people from having strangers kill them but having those guns around puts them at greater risk for being killed in a situation with someone that they do know,” said study co-author Dr. Michael Siegel, professor of community health sciences at the BU School of Public Health.

The new study found that, for each one-percentage point increase in state-level gun ownership, the state’s non-stranger homicide rate increased by 0.9 percent, with firearm homicides increasing by 1.4 percent.

In Wyoming where nearly 74 percent of households own guns, 12 percent of gun homicides were committed by strangers — and 88 percent were committed by those who knew each other. In Hawaii, where just 13 percent of homes have a gun, 21 percent of gun murders were committed by strangers.

Around 11:15 p.m. last Thursday, Wayne Odegard was walking down the sidewalk outside the Saloon's patio in downtown Minneapolis when he saw a gay couple kissing.
Since the Saloon is one of the city's best-known gay bars, you wouldn't expect anything else, right? But Odegard was so incensed by the gay PDA that he allegedly called the couple "fucking faggots," broke out his BB gun, and started shooting.
Or at least so say Hennepin County authorities, who have charged Odegard, 43, with a felony count of making terroristic threats.

According
to the charges, a security guard heard Odegard utter the slur and saw
him shoot one of the men, hitting him in the leg. The guard then gave
chase and wrestled Odegard to the ground before calling police.

When
officers arrived on the scene, they saw Odegard, on the ground and
handcuffed, looking at the person he shot as well as other Saloon
patrons and allegedly calling them "faggots."

The victim later told authorities he heard Odegard mumble something.

"The next thing [he] remembered was hearing loud pops and feeling pain on his shin," the charges say.

After he was arrested, Odegard told authorities he saw the men kissing in public and "wanted it to stop."

"Defendant admitted to
saying 'faggots' before the shooting, and said that seeing men kissing pisses him off," the complaint adds.

In an interview with Fox 9,
the security guard involved in the incident, Tyler Erickson, said
Odegard "told me multiple times that I'm going to go to hell and he's
going to bring me with him."

Erickson told Fox 9 the gay couple involved live in Brooklyn and Philadelphia.

"They
both joked that they came to progressive Minneapolis and got shot for
being gay," he said, adding that the victim wasn't seriously injured.

In a subsequent report, one of Odegard's siblings told Fox 9 they're
concerned that if he's released from jail, "he will escalate this
behavior and seriously injure or kill a member of the gay community."

Assembly Bill 1014, by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner,
D-Berkeley, was the Legislature’s central response to the lethal
shooting in May near the University of California,Santa Barbara.
It will allow family members of someone who is displaying signs of
mental instability to request a court order temporarily barring gun use
and purchase.
Families of people killed in Isla Vista had lobbied for the bill at the Capitol, and Skinner cheered Brown’s action Tuesday.
“Family members are often the first to spot the warning signs when
someone is in crisis,” she said in a prepared statement. “AB 1014
strengthens our mental health and gun control laws by providing an
effective tool which family members and law enforcement can use to help prevent shootings before they occur.”

However this guy seems to be the perfect example of why such laws are needed, and not just in California. Odegard seems like exactly the kind of gun owner -- and it appears there is a concern he owns more than a BB gun -- who presents a danger to himself and others. You have to be a little nuts to carry around a BB gun while just wandering down the street for no particular reason and then start shooting up people.

A 13-year-old boy was shot and killed by his 14-year-old best friend Tuesday in what the boy's father is calling a tragic accident.

Tyin Caldwell's father says the boys were playing with a gun inside an apartment on Downing Street Northeast Tuesday night just before 7:30 p.m. The father and the other boy's mother were talking outside the apartment and rushed in to help.

While the boy was conscious when police arrived he later died at a hospital.

"The preliminary investigation indicates that this is an accidental shooting," said D.C. Police Commander George Kucik.

As a result, the 14-year-old has not been charged. But Kucik says the owner of the gun could still face charges and the investigation is ongoing.

Gun control groups say this is the year they finally go toe-to-toe with the National Rifle Association and match their foe's imposing campaign spending for congressional candidates.

"It's an important issue to segments of voters on both sides" of the gun issue, said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster. "You don't need to make a huge difference, you just need to make a little difference because these races are all so close."

Few doubt that organizations led by billionaire Michael Bloomberg and the wounded former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., will unleash huge sums in the campaigns' closing weeks to back candidates favoring firearms curbs. They're off to modest starts — unlike the NRA.

Barely a month from Election Day, the nation's most powerful gun rights group has so far reported spending over $10 million for ads and other efforts either for or against more than 60 congressional candidates. The efforts include sending NRA field representatives to gun shows to tout favored candidates.

That spending — which is supposed to be done independently and not coordinated with candidates — makes the NRA the ninth highest spender of more than 300 groups tracked by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors political spending.

Virtually all NRA spending has been to help Republicans. As of Aug. 31 it reported having $18.5 million banked and was still raising money.

Nugent then turned to liberalism as the culprit behind the struggles that have "decimated and destroyed so many black families and their communities."

"It is deaf, dumb and blind liberalism that has shoveled over $20 trillion into Fedzilla’s welfare crack programs over the past 50 years," Nugent said.

The musician closed the column with: "The road to peace and prosperity in America is to reject the big liberal lie and all those who endorse it. Liberalism is a lie. Liberalism is a scam. Liberalism is a killer."

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Hey, Mikeb--still basking in the glow of "gun control's" epic "victory" with regard to Facebook? This guy seems a lot less impressed.

Why do you think he's such a Negative Nelly?

That was in response to my

I still say it's a major victory, as opposed, let's say, to a statement
that no restrictions or limitations will be issued to Facebook users who
advertise guns. Just like Starbucks could have gone further, what they
did was a major victory for our side. Same with Facebook.

When the Washington PostFact Checker looked at this question, NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam pegged Landrieu’s vote "to take away your gun rights" to her support of the Toomey-Manchin proposal (named after its sponsors, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.).

That proposal, which failed 54 to 46 in April 2013, did not ban the sale of any firearms. Its most significant provision would have expanded federal background checks already in place to firearm purchases made at gun shows and over the Internet. You could still buy a weapon from a family member or friend without a background check.

The Fact Checker concluded that it’s hard to envision a situation in which Toomey-Manchin would have prevented a woman from being able to defend herself against an intruder. Assuming the woman in the ad was legally eligible to purchase a firearm (meaning she doesn’t have a criminal record), she would not have any trouble owning a gun in her home — even if Toomey-Manchin passed.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

THE power
of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in times of
insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties of superintending
the common defense, and of watching over the internal peace of the Confederacy...Of the different grounds which have been taken in
opposition to the plan of the convention, there is none that was so little to
have been expected, or is so untenable in itself, as the one from which this
particular provision has been attacked. If a well-regulated militia be the most
natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation
and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the
national security. If standing armies are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious
power over the militia, in the body to whose care the protection of the State is
committed, ought, as far as possible, to take away the inducement and the
pretext to such unfriendly institutions. If the federal government can command
the aid of the militia in those emergencies which call for the military arm in
support of the civil magistrate, it can the better dispense with the employment
of a different kind of force. If it cannot avail itself of the former, it will
be obliged to recur to the latter. To render an army unnecessary, will be a more
certain method of preventing its existence than a thousand prohibitions upon
paper.

DO you still want to argue that well-regulated does not mean under strict control by laws?

This is yet another aspect where facts and history are against you if you want to try and argue that it means "well-trained".

California will become the first state that allows family members to ask a judge to remove firearms from a relative who appears to pose a threat, under legislation Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday he had signed.

The bill was proposed by several Democrats and responds to a deadly rampage in May near the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Supporters had said such a measure could have prevented the attacks, winning out over critics who said it would erode gun rights.

Law enforcement authorities in Connecticut, Indiana and Texas can seek a judge's order allowing them to seize guns from people they deem to be a danger.

The new California law gives law enforcement the same option and extends it to family members.

It continues California's efforts to lead the nation in preventing firearm injury and death, said Amanda Wilcox, an advocate for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, whose daughter was a victim of gun violence.

The greatest effect might be in preventing suicides or intervening where there is a history of domestic violence, she said.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

I
don't engage. I can't. It's too much, and here's the thing: my
engagement with it helps no one. It sheds no light, it heals no ills, it
rights no wrongs. And it gives me a headache. I stay out of it as much
as I can. I will vote. I will advocate. I will
inform, if people have misinformation and don't know it (as opposed to
those actively choosing misinformation), but I'm not going to play silly
games with malignant or ridiculous (or malignantly ridiculous) people.

We've gone over Article III, Section iii of the US Constitution. It's also been shown that "Whatever theoretical merit there may be to the argument that there is a
"right" to rebellion against dictatorial governments is without force
where the existing structure of the government provides for peaceful and
orderly change."

We need to add in that the Fourteenth Amendment says:

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in
Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any
office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State,
who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an
officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature,
or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the
Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or
rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies
thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove
such disability.

While you might want to find some authority for your claim to be able to "fight" the United States, you cannot use the US Constitution, or Constitutional framework, as an authority.

In fact, it makes it pretty clear that you are not a patriot. Instead, but by the Constitutional definition above, you are a traitor and engaging in treason.

An accidental shooting early Sunday morning put one man in the hospital with a wound to his shoulder.

Undersheriff Clair Morris said Johny Hernandez, 22, of Twin Falls and Jaymz Quintana, 20, of Elko were out shooting about five miles west of Bullion Road. As they were walking back to their car, Hernandez’s gun accidentally fired, hitting Quintana in the shoulder, Morris said.

Hernandez took Quintana to the hospital, where Elko County sheriff’s deputies were notified of the shooting. Hernandez was not arrested because the shooting was determined to be an accident, Morris said.

Do you think that was his first incident of gun misuse? I don't. Do you think it'll be his last?

A Rapid City man required hospital treatment Saturday night after he accidentally shot himself, according to a release from the Rapid City Police Department.

While sitting in his living room in the 2500 block of Judy Avenue around 11:15 p.m., Paul Weiler, 30, shot himself in the leg as he was cleaning a 9-millimeter handgun, the release said.

Weiler was taken to Rapid City Regional Hospital for treatment. He was later arrested on a charge of reckless discharge of a firearm while intoxicated, according to the release.

This is better than the usual nonchalance with which they treat these incidents, but it's not enough. After this slap-on-the-wrist charge, he'll be back in business. He'll be drinkin' and playin' with his guns again without missing a beat.

Those are just a few of the major sites which perpetuated this lie. Dozens of small time gun blogs picked it up and repeated it as often as possible, knowing that's how to lend credibility to a falsehood.Kurt, the guy whose integrity and honesty are indisputable (according to him) said this:

As for what Feinstein was talking about with the "turn them all in," I hadn't realized there was any question that she was referring specifically to so-called "assault weapons," rather than all guns. I certainly have never pretended otherwise.

Now I ask you, for a guy who reads and writes about guns every day, is it credible that he "hadn't realized there was any question that she was referring specifically to so-called "assault weapons?" "

Police in Pennsylvania say a man accused of shooting a bullet through a neighbor's window told a judge he fired the gun because it was the only way he knew how to unload it.

Middletown Detective Patrick Nicastro tells the Bucks County Courier Times (http://bit.ly/1CwbE81) that 31-year-old George Byrd IV of Penndel at first denied being behind the shooting but then acknowledged during his arraignment that he fired the weapon to clear the chamber because he was unfamiliar with guns.

Authorities say Byrd fired the gun early Friday afternoon in the suburban Philadelphia community. No one was injured.

Byrd is being held in the Bucks County jail on $20,000 bond. No attorney is listed on court papers.

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Whatever theoretical merit there may be to the argument that there is a
"right" to rebellion against dictatorial governments is without force
where the existing structure of the government provides for peaceful and
orderly change. We reject any principle of governmental helplessness in
the face of preparation for revolution, which principle, carried to its
logical conclusion, must lead to anarchy. No one could conceive that it
is not within the power of Congress to prohibit acts intended to
overthrow the Government by force and violence.